Episode 324.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Speaker1:
I hope my story reminds you that emotions aren’t distractions. They’re the energy behind your goals. And your goals are your dreams made visible.
Speaker2:
Podcasting from a little cabin on a Hill. This is the Stacy Westfall podcast. Stacy’s goal is simple to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.
Speaker1:
Hi, I’m Stacy Westfall and I’m here to help you understand, enjoy and successfully train your own horses. In this episode, I’m doing something a little different. I have a personal story to share because hidden inside of it is an example of how a dream becomes a goal. A common mistake that I see when it comes to goal setting is that the word goal, often unintentionally translates into something cold and clinical, like a rigid step by step process that you can judge as either passing or failing. It’s almost as if success means correctly seeing your goal, and then outlining all 1386 steps in one day, and then following them all perfectly, never missing one, or else you fail. And that’s just not how goals work. A worthy goal has a beating heart. It has a pull as something that comes from deep inside you. And yes, I’m still going to have you write out a thousand steps, but not to make it robotic or rigid. Those steps are just your best guess at the path forward. The challenge with explaining concepts that happen in your heart and soul is that they aren’t logical. They’re felt. So today I’m going to share a story with you in full story form. And then I’ll come back and unpack how your heart and soul can and should be connected to your goals. Now, you’re going to need a little bit of backstory for this to make sense. This is a talk that I recently gave at a banquet.
Speaker1:
So for you podcast listeners, it’s a bit of a sneak peek behind the scenes in my life. You’ll also need to know that Cora is my local reigning club. It stands for Central Ohio Reining Horse Association. And this talk was my way of sharing the impact that the club has had on me from my point of view. You’ll also need to know what a Green Ranger is. That is when someone wants to start showing in reining. The Green Ranger class is designed to ease them in. It has limits that keep it for people that are just getting started. And it often has modified rules as you listen to my story. Pay attention to the moment when my goal. Became clear, but also notice all the emotions surrounding it. Look around this room for a moment. What you’re seeing isn’t just a group of horse people. You’re looking at mentors who push us beyond our limits. Competitors who make us better. And friends who stand with us, sometimes without even realizing the lives they’ve changed. Some of you might know me from the 2006 freestyle video riding Roxy, Bareback and Bridleless, but tonight I want to tell you about a different ride right here at Corra. That actually changed my life, because that’s what clubs like this do. They change lives in ways we never expect. One show, one conversation. One moment of encouragement at a time.
Speaker1:
In 1997, I competed in my first NHRA class, and it happened to be at a car show. What I didn’t know then was I was stepping into a club that would not only shape my future, but had already begun to shape the entire sport of reining. You see this club? Our club created the Green Ranger program that’s now used at affiliate shows everywhere to welcome newcomers to our sport. I learned to show here, and mainly I learned by making every mistake possible. I became an honorary member of both the three Spin Club and the five Spin Club. Nicknames for when you spend too many times or not enough times. I also broke plenty of other rules that don’t come with fun nicknames, but that’s the beauty of this place. You can make those mistakes and still belong. Like many of you, juggling family and horses. My kids grew up here watching from the sidelines, playing in the sand, running to watch their favorite part of the show, the tractor dragging the arena and eventually showing here too. But what makes Cora special isn’t just that it’s a place to learn. It’s that it’s a place that produces champions, not just world champions. In the arena, though, we’ve produced plenty of those but champions of the sport itself. People who understand that reining is about more than just staying out of the penalty box. It’s about building something larger than ourselves. In 2003, my husband Jesse had a plan.
Speaker1:
He had shown himself out of the limited open, and one of the horses he had been showing was a mare named Cancan Lina. He convinced me that if I showed her in the limited open, it would be better for her. She could earn more. He knew showing stressed me out, but he also knew how to persuade me by explaining how it would help the horse. The plan was solid. There was just one small problem. My relationship with the penalty box. Overspin Underspin. Show after show, it was the same story. If that spin penalty hadn’t been there, I would have won. Would have. Could have didn’t. Then came that day at a Koora show in Painesville, Ohio. The patter started with spins and for once they were accurate. Both spins solid and penalty free. My circles were good. Just three stops to go, and after the second stop and rollback and this mare could really roll back. I knew I was having my best ride ever. That’s when it happened. I shook my reins to reins to lengthen them, and the right rein slipped from my hand, dragging on the ground. Time really does slow down in moments like that. I knew the rules, or at least I thought I did. No touching the saddle horn. No use of your second hand. I put my free hand behind my back, shook my left rein, long and bent over her neck as far as I could, trying to grab the right rein as we loped around the top of the arena.
Speaker1:
As we rounded the top, I managed to pick up the rein and despite a full drape in my left and direct contact in my right rein, she still stopped a plus half. Relief flooded through me, but only for a moment. That’s when I realized the judge was out of his chair. What I didn’t know was that a new rule had been written for people like me that says, as soon as the rein touches the ground, when you’re in motion, you’re disqualified. Penalty zero. I went to sit in the stands waiting to go home, replaying my mistake over and over again. But then something remarkable started happening. Club members would walk by and instead of avoiding me, they’d stop and they’d offer me their perspective. One comment that’s still stuck in my mind is that was amazing how you were leaning over and never missed a stride. These words were in such stark contrast to what was going on in my head. I didn’t know what to make of them. What I understand now is they weren’t just trying to cheer me up. They were planting seeds, giving me different truths to hold on to instead of going home trapped in negativity. Their words kept coming back to me. I really had stayed in control even with that dropped rein, I’d always dreamed of riding in the freestyle reining, so I went home and started experimenting.
Speaker1:
I tied the reins to the horn and decided to figure it out. I dropped the Rein, and zeroed at the July show. A few months later, I showed for the first time in freestyle bridleless. Now, many of you may have seen where this journey led to that 2006 Bridleless ride with Wizards baby doll that went viral. But here’s what most people don’t know. That worldwide moment started right here in this club, on a day when I thought I had failed completely. It started because fellow club members didn’t just see my mistake, they saw my potential. They didn’t just offer comfort, they offered perspectives that changed everything. That’s the real power of a club like Quora. Any organization can host shows, but it takes a takes a special community to turn someone’s lowest moment into a breakthrough that changes their life. Every rider, whether they’re just starting out or have been here for decades, is on the edge of their next breakthrough. It could be a skill they’ve been struggling to master. Sometimes it’s pushing past what they thought possible. And sometimes it’s discovering a lesson they didn’t know they needed until that very moment. What I learned here at Cora about community, about resilience, about seeing possibilities instead of failures. It ripples outward. The Green Ranger program that started right here is now used nationwide. Welcoming newcomers to our sport, just like this club welcomed me back in 1997.
Speaker1:
Look around this room one more time. 26 years ago, I rode into my first Cora Khorosho. Thinking I was just showing and raining. I had no idea I was stepping into a place that would completely change my life. But that’s the magic of what we have here. Every time we gather every show, we’re not just running patterns or chasing scores. We’re creating moments that might just change someone’s life. Sometimes it’s in the big victories, but more often it’s in those small moments. A word of encouragement when someone’s just zeroed, a different way of seeing what went wrong, or simply being there when someone needs to believe in themselves. The lesson I learned the day I dropped the rein, is far more valuable than the trophy I didn’t win, because in making the mistake, I gained something far more meaningful a deeper understanding of what true community looks like. It showed me that sometimes our biggest setbacks open the door to possibilities we We never imagined. That’s the real legacy of Korra, not just the champions we’ve produced or the programs we’ve created, but the dreams we make possible. One ride, one moment. One mistake. One dream at a time. What I hope you heard there was my dream to someday show in freestyle. Reining became an actual goal. Born out of a very painful experience. One of my favorite quotes is by Kahlil Gibran and it says, your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Speaker1:
Here are three things I hope this story illustrates. Number one, the mistake people make with goals is trying to remove the heart and the emotions. If you take the emotions out of out of your goal, it might feel safer and you’ll know because it will probably feel more clinical to you. But those emotions, the ones that you love and the ones that feel like they are breaking you are a sign that you’re doing something that matters to you. The heart and soul of your experience is the whole reason the goal matters. That rock bottom moment for me, combined with the club members different perspectives, helped me see that that dream I had had for a decade was closer than I’d imagined. I had seen freestyle reining for the first time ten years earlier, but I had never set it as an actual goal until after the day that I dropped the Rein,. The second point, I hope it illustrates you can feel so far off that you’re ready to quit, and just a few shifts can change everything. I’m still surprised at how small moments create such big changes. And this is something that I always keep in mind when I’m teaching. What they offered me wasn’t just consoling me with it’s okay, it’ll get better. Instead, they pointed out real things that had happened. They showed me where I had really been in control the whole time, but I just couldn’t see past the mistake I made to recognize it.
Speaker1:
I value this kind of feedback because I have a very active mind, and simply hearing it’s okay or it will get better. It’s usually not enough for me to believe it. If you want to shift your perspective and you feel stuck, look for facts. Or better yet, find a group of people who think like this. People who can show you what you can’t see in yourself. It’s okay. Might have been a soothing thing to hear, but it wouldn’t have given me the traction to take the next step. When someone said to me, it’s amazing how you were leaning over and never missed a stride. That one comment gave me enough perspective to try again, and with that mental shift, I went from a devastating ride in July to my first Bridleless competition in just a matter of months. Perspective really can change everything. The third thing is community really does matter. I’ve seen it firsthand in my own life, and students often tell me how much the community aspect of being in a program like The Resourceful Rider helps, because being with like minded people inspires and motivates. Especially if you live in an area where there isn’t a local horse community. Now in my story, the community was built around showing. For some of you listening, you might notice that you that you have a love hate relationship with showing or a confusing relationship with the idea of showing.
Speaker1:
Maybe part of you wants to do the showing, but another part of you knows that you really don’t care about the results, so you’re not sure why you like the showing, but then you kind of notice that you like the structure, but you’re confused because you don’t really care about competing. If that’s you, that’s not wishy washy. It’s actually pretty common. And here’s why. Shows offer structure. But even more importantly, they offer community. Every show has its own unique culture and even the different aisleways. If you walk up and down at a show, you’ll notice there’s different vibes coming from each different group. But collectively, everyone is there, centered around one thing horses. And most often it’s around something even more specific than that quarter horses or reining horses or jumping horses. It’s no wonder you’re drawn to it. Even if you don’t care about winning. And if showing isn’t your thing. That same sense of community can be found in other places. At a boarding barn. In a trail riding club. At a horse rescue. At a clinic. Or even in online programs. I hope my story reminds you that emotions aren’t distractions. They’re the energy behind your goals. And your goals are your dreams made visible? With the right perspective and support, it’s truly amazing what’s possible. Thanks for listening and I’ll talk to you again in the next episode.
Speaker2:
If you enjoy listening to Stacy’s podcast, please visit Stacy Westfall for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.
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